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Criminal Innovation and Illicit Global Markets: Transnational Crime in Asia

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Criminal Innovation and Illicit Global Markets: Transnational Crime in Asia Criminal innovation and illicit global markets: transnational crime in Asia Dr Roderic Broadhurst, Professor of Criminology, Research School of Social Science, and Fellow Research School of Asia and the Pacific. Conference Paper, (April 13, 2016) Philippine Social Science Council Beyond Politics and Spectacle: Crime, Drugs and Punishment, March 17-18, 2017, Manila, Quezon City Acknowledgements I am grateful to Thierry and Brigitte Bouhours for their careful comments and suggestions on an early draft. I also thank Ho-Woon Chung and Professor Filomin Gutierrez of the University of the Philippine for their assistance and the Philippine Social Science Council for the invitation to speak in Manila. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2842099 Abstract The size and reach of the market in illicit products and services reflect patterns of globalization, economic growth, and armed conflict as well as government and civil society responses to the impacts of these markets. In Asia, these illicit markets have grown rapidly with the opening up of trade and development of China, India and ASEAN boosted by infrastructure development and increased wealth. Traditional crime groups have re-vitalized and new entrepreneurial crime groups have emerged to capitalise on the illicit market opportunities contributing to a surge in the distribution and the use of narcotics as well as other contraband (i.e. counterfeit products and medicines, timber, exotic species, e-waste, weapons, labour trafficking) in Asia and worldwide. These developments have triggered extreme responses, such as Philippines’ President Duterte’s bloody ‘war on drugs’. Illicit drugs account for more than a third of the estimated annual $US100 billion criminal economy in Asia (UNODC, 2013). Countermeasures at the regional (ASEAN, UNODC, INTERPOL) and national level have focused law enforcement on drug supply and distribution while alternative ‘harm reduction’ approaches, including treatment and de-criminalisation, have not developed apace. Policies such as ‘drug free zones’ and the ‘war on drugs’ have unintended consequences, undermining the rule of law and enhancing the profits of criminal organisations. Chronic court delays and severe prison overcrowding are also costly by-products. This paper outlines the illicit markets-criminal organisations nexus in Asia and considers how responses to transnational crime can amplify or diminish its hidden power. Keywords: organised crime, war on drugs, illicit markets, Asia 2 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2842099 Introduction The scope, diversity and form of organized crime in Asia have been re-vitalized by the opening up and intensification of the region’s economy. Rapidly growing economies, increased wealth and a growing middle class help drive consumer diverse demands for scarce licit and illicit products. Black or illicit markets cater accordingly and so counterfeit high street brands and pharmaceutical products or medicines, scarce timber and exotic wildlife trade are intertwined with the long established lucrative recreational drug or narcotic market. The organized armed groups that arise to protect these lucrative underground markets amass capital for their expansion and even to challenge or subvert state security (by corruption and fear) and undermine the traditional constitutional monopoly of violence and the protection of state revenue (Correa-Cabrera, Keck and Nava 2015). The black market in self-medication and escapism cuts across all levels of society. Both wealthy and poor seek out ways of managing fatigue and life-stress, and markets in cheaper synthetic (analog) narcotics not dependent on variable opium, cannabis or coca yields have developed. This has helped create demand for the recreational use of methamphetamines (‘ice’), other amphetamine type stimulants (ATS, e.g. ecstasy) and new psychoactive substances (NPS) as well as synthetic opiates and cocaine. UN illicit drug user surveys and police seizures suggest recreational drug use, especially ATS, synthetic opiates and cocaine, is on the rise (UN World Drug Report 2016). In turn, Asian crime entrepreneurs engage in an industrial-like global business, exporting precursor chemicals such as ephedrine or manufacturing illicit ATS or NPS drugs and importing opiates from the golden triangle or Afghanistan and cocaine via Africa or direct from South America, often for re-export to the USA and valuable markets in Europe and Australia (Hamilton 2016). In short, the Asian illicit drug business offers highly profitable cross-Pacific and Silk Road or Central Asian trade routes enabling precursors or manufactured “ice” to be exchanged for South American cocaine or opium sourced from the Golden Triangle or Afghanistan and Iran routed via Africa, SE Asia or Pacific Island countries. 3 The scale of the problem, illustrated by record breaking seizures of illicit drugs, has attracted a sense of urgency about the risks of widening governance gaps and the region’s capacities to disrupt the trade and prevent and reduce harms generated by transnational crime. Along with changes in drug preferences, a re-shaping of the distribution of illicit drugs is occurring as a result of rapid developments in transport infrastructure and more open intra-regional trade. Shifts in consumer preferences, complementary criminal investment in other illicit markets (notably, China trade in wildlife delicacies and exotic species used in traditional medicines, e-waste, and timber products) and the relative effectiveness of countermeasures addressing supply and distribution altogether play a role in shaping the quality and cost of the various national drug sub-markets. The complexity of the region poses special challenges to the development of effective regional responses to transnational crime. Asia covers a vast area and includes over half the world’s population, including China and India, the two most populous nations in the world. Asia has the world’s fastest growing economies but also extremes of inequality and destitution that are often ineffectively mitigated by governments. Such inequalities generate crime alongside the related problems of poor governance and corruption (Broadhurst, 2006; Broadhurst, Gordon and McFarlane 2012). Where competent criminal justice systems operate effectively against illicit markets, trafficking flows and organized crime have been displaced to other countries with weaker regulatory and law enforcement capabilities. Thus, policing organized crime has moved beyond purely localized national responses as it becomes increasingly evident that transnational organized crime groups operate in, and manipulate, multi-dimensional global crime markets (ACC 2011). The current view of the morphology of organized crime is that loose, project driven networks of actors are involved in a range of illicit activities, and this is driven by the profitable opportunities offered by criminal markets. Thus, strategies aimed at attacking crime groups, such as criminal association laws or 4 other measures to disrupt the trade, like ‘war on drugs’ campaigns, will not impact broadly on illicit markets unless the markets themselves are regulated (UNODC 2010a; Broadhurst and Ly 2012). Responses to transnational crime Nearly all Asia1 has signed on to the Palermo or UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), which came into force in 2003. This provides a common platform for cross-border co- operation against organized crime and illicit markets. Cross border cooperation and bi-lateral mutual legal assistance have developed accordingly; however, regional integration and law enforcement capability remain limited. Implementation at the operational level encounters considerable practical and logistical challenges; nevertheless, bi-lateral or multi-lateral police task forces are active and avenues for co-ordination and intelligence analysis are strengthening. Nascent ASEAN institutionalization of policing, co-ordination of customs and immigration, along with established global partners such as the UNODC and Interpol, provide a framework for improved regulatory responses to criminal markets and organizations. Policy reform is required to shift focus on harm reduction to tackle the harms of organized crime and criminal markets Significant increases have been recorded in the number of deaths arising from the use of these powerful narcotics in the US and several other jurisdictions. Alarm over the availability of dangerous synthetic opiates and other NPS has compelled states in the region to act. For example, in October 2015, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) designated previously unregulated alpha- PVPalpha (‘flakka’- a NPS) as a controlled substance and placed restrictions on the export of a- PVP and another 115 chemical substances used to make synthetic drugs without any legitimate medical or other use2. Improved oversight and regulation of NPS analogues, notably the powerful 1 North Korea is not a UN member state but some Oceania PICs have not signed the TOC (i.e. Tuvala, Fiji and the Solomon Islands) while Japan and Papua New Guinea have signed but not ratified the treaty as of June 2016. 2 “Flakka” is also prohibited in Australia and many other jurisdictions. In 2015 it was made explicitly illegal 5 opiate synthetic fentanyl and in early 2017 the more potent carfentanil, followed alarming increases in deaths caused by these opiates (O’Connor 2016; 2017). Co-ordinated action on the suppression of the export of precursor chemicals across the region is
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